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Contrary to previous posts, Beach Street is on the mainland. The railroad is several blocks inland. Looking north, the picture is at the location of the "historic" section of Beach Street across from City Island -- a bridge to to the island appears through the trees(?). In fact I was at the library on City Island very recently. Know this section of road well as it is today -- trust me: a great deal of change.

Those telephone wires had the ability to service much more than one phone each due to the "party line" feature. Even as late as the mid 1940's our house was on a 8 party line. Some how we only heard 4 rings. you had to remember which combination of long and short rings was for your phone. No listening in to other peoples calls, wait for your turn, and vacate the line imediately if someone declares an emergency!

I'm not positive, but I think the main line of the Florida East Coast Railway might be out of view to the right, and those telephone/telegraph poles are following it. I can see what looks like a type of guard rail in the extreme right of the photo, and I think the FEC ran right through the middle of most of the towns along, well, the Florida east coast (duh).

Update: The FEC is not out of sight behind the telephone poles. Like many east coast beaches Daytona is on a barrier island; the FEC ran slightly inland on firmer ground, on the other side of the present-day Intracoastal Waterway (probably just a saltmarsh back then).

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.